Any military families here w adoption experience?

militarywife2b · March 2010

Hi ladies

I haven't posted on this board before, I use to post on the infertility board. My DH and I are possibly looking into adoption and would like to hear the military perspective on adopting any information would be helpful. Thanks

Cissi64 · March 2010

No experience here but try posting again during the week if you don't get a response. This board moves slowly and especially so on the weekends.

jej05 · March 2010

We are Navy and in the "still trying to figure out what do stage". I'm fully onboard. DH has his days when he goes back and forth. What branch are you guys?

militarywife2b · March 2010

Army

cjmorgan · March 2010

The family that is adopting my son is in the Air Force. The wife is in the AIr Force reserves and due to the fact that they didn't think I would pick them so fast she is currently deployed in Afghanistan right now. I'm not really sure how their adoption process went but they did pick an agency that works with people all over the country so maybe it made it easier for them since they move every 4 years. BUT interesting fact we're not sure yet if the wife will be back to the states before I go into labor and apparently the air force has this thing called "baby cam" that may broad cast my labor all the way over to Afghanistan....hopefully its a camera that won't be pointing at my vajayjay the entire time, but it is a very cute idea for people who are deployed!

GulfCoaster · March 2010

Are you considering domestic or international adoption? There is a woman who posts here from time to time (and is a regular over on Money Matters on the Nest) who is adopting from Ethiopia, and IIRC her husband is in the armed services. I cannot for the life of me remember her username, unfortunately... But you are not the only military family to consider adoption! Military families can and do adopt.

GL to you! And welcome to the board. :-)

ETA: The user I was talking about is tjenbell. Hopefully she drops by and sees this thread.

tjenbell · March 2010

Hi there! We are a military family (Air Force) and are adopting from Ethiopia. I would say it's not much different than adopting as a civilian couple. The only difference is you probably want to start the process at the beginning of a new assignment, as we did. We will likely move about a month after our son comes home (we got our referral in January and will likely travel in April to bring him home). It was a long process. We started the paperwork in mid-2008, dossier was in Ethiopia in February 2009 and now here we are. The military gives something like $2500 toward the adopting, after everything is finalized. Not a lot, considering an adoption is $20-35,000, depending on where you adopt from, but we're grateful to have that help.

I don't really know much about the domestic adoption process. I do know that we were told that since our location is always up in the air, foster-to-adopt was not recommended. It would be possible to get a placement and then get orders to somewhere else before the adoption is final. And since foster children are officially wards of the state before adoption is complete, we would not be permitted to leave the state before the adoption would be complete, so we had to close that door.

If you have more specific questions, let me know and I will see if I can help.

GLynn2009 · March 2010

We are retired Navy so we do not have to worry about the moving part. A couple of things with adoption though. If you or DH have lived out of the country/state you will have to have background checks from all states and countries that you/he has lived in. DH was Navy so he saw the world but never lived there so we were good there. We did have to send and get backgrounds from several states and that takes a lot of time. We have Tricare and our insurance picked-up DD as soon as we received custody even though we have not adopted her yet so that is good.

Not much help but the military seems pretty adoption friendly from what I read. I know of several people that adopted while still in the service just beaware that it could take time so do not start it and invest your money if you can not follow through.

KasiaB29 · March 2010

Hi,

My husband is active duty in the Marine Corps and we just recently had a baby girl placed with us for adoption. Ours was a private adoption, but we were also certified for foster care adoption. Our agency works with a lot of military families so they understand the different situations in which military families often find themselves (i.e. deployment, moving across the country). However, our SW did point out in our homestudy that we own the house we live in and that we are planning on staying in SoCal (given the Marine Corps doesn't have alternative plans for us). She also asked that we mention our intent to stay put in our BM letter. Besides that, the agency has been very understanding of my husband's crazy schedule (he is a Drill Instructor). The social worker did not require his presence during any post placement visits and she has been very flexible with scheduling any appointments (she came to our house on a Saturday to sign placement paperwork).

Oh and my husband got 21 days of non-chargeable leave when we brought the baby home. Google "adoption leave for service members adopting children" for a copy of the memo.

Good Luck!

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